


Terms of Endearment

by Palebluedot



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Established Relationship, Humor, I recommend that you don't either, I'm not gonna tag this as crack but it doesn't take itself seriously, Jack is an eloquent drunk, Multi, Post-Series, but established as WHAT, ot4: three lesbians and jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 13:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10641216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: “But there is no contract here,” Max counters, warm and smooth as a pebble on the beach, the perfect counterweight to Anne's increasingly scandalized silence. “This is not binding or rigid. Take it from me, the heart is a free-spirited thing. You cannot always so easily trammel it with definitions.”“Ah, but I'm confident wecan,” Jack encourages. “Here's what I've figured out so far..."~~~Or, the one where Jack wants to ~define the relationship~ to debatable success.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Условия договора](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476320) by [rose_rose (Escargot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escargot/pseuds/rose_rose)



When he returns from buying the next round, Anne's just as he left her, flanked on either side by Max and Mary, the former leaning against Anne's shoulder, and the latter smirking into her rum after delivering, judging by the other two's low laughter, a particularly amusing point in her anecdote. Full of war stories, that one is. What proportion of them are _true_ is somewhat called into question by the fact that she'd _lied_ to them all about her _nether regions_ for _months,_ but Jack's hardly going to be the one to spoil the fun. In fact, he's rather tempted to ask her to catch him up on what he missed, but he mustn't get distracted. His mission is _vital_. Besides, if he winds up distracted, that means he's drunk. Which he's _not_. Were he drunk, he couldn't possibly have walked with such _purpose_ and _authority_ over to their table, and only collided with a barstool once.

Jack collapses into his chair, pushes three of the four glasses in his arms across the table. Max reaches over to retrieve her wine – apparently that _wasn't_ Mary's, oh well, he got Anne's right – and in the process ends up sort of draped across Anne's lap, where she then quite happily settles and stays. 

“The fuck took you so long?” Anne spits at him, even as the very corner of her mouth betrays her contentment at recent developments – specifically, the one cozied up to her, sipping wine with a refinement somehow not at odds with the ubiquitous, raucous din of the surrounding brothel.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Jack daydreamed about tossing Max on a longboat and pushing her out to sea, whistling all the while. Now, he wouldn't send her away for every last bit of shiny in that _fucking_ thrice-damned cache – which reminds him, he has a job to do. “A matter of grave import,” he confides, leaning forward, palms spread flat on the tabletop. “What _exactly_ , pray tell, is our situation here?” 

Max cocks her head. “You mean in regards to our next prize? I thought we agreed –”

“No. Not that. The...other thing.”

“What _other_ _thing_?” Mary asks, rather looking like she's still waiting for the punchline. It is then that Jack notices how she's got her arm wrapped 'round the back of Anne's chair, and _do they not see it?_

“This!” he exclaims, gesturing madly in the space above the table, nearly toppling his glass. “You. Me. Her. You. Us. _Is_ there an “us”?” He pauses, considers. “I'm almost certain there is. There _seems_ to be an “us”, you certainly don't feel like a “them”. So, the question then becomes, _w_ _hat_ is our “us”? It is very important,” he declares, “that I know, in no uncertain terms, what, precisely, the arrangement is.”

He is met with three blank stares until, at last, Anne furrows her brow. “You mean who's fucking who?”

“ _Yes!_ ” He slaps the table, triumphant. The blank stares grow less blank and more alarmed, and it occurs to him he may have crossed some sort of line. “It's not that I _mind_ – whatever this is. Quite the contrary,” he rushes to assure them, just in case. “But you see, I've realized I've wound up in the middle of a rather complicated network of liaisons that I don't entirely understand, which is rather unsettling to me. For instance, Mary,” he says, turning sharply towards her, “what _are_ we to one another?”

She blinks at him once, twice, then shrugs. “You're my captain. You point the ship, I cut down things get in its way, we both line our pockets, then go get drinks. We're partners. Friends.” Jack sees now more than ever why she and Anne took to each other so quickly. Perhaps there's some secret society of blunt, deadly women in trousers he's unaware of, and they all carry signs that make them consumingly attractive to one another. “And we're both with Anne, in our own way.”

“Well, yes, that's all very true, but it's _more_ _complicated_ than that,” he insists. “There's some sort of _arrangement_ between us, and I need to know the – the _implications_ and the _terms_ of all this. You must always read the fine print before signing a contract,” he proclaims sagely. “And I'm not sure I even glanced over the large print.”

“But there is no contract here,” Max counters, warm and smooth as a pebble on the beach, the perfect counterweight to Anne's increasingly scandalized silence. “This is not binding or rigid. Take it from me, the heart is a free-spirited thing. You cannot always so easily trammel it with definitions.”

“Ah, but I'm confident we _can_ ,” Jack encourages. “Here's what I've figured out so far: _yo_ _u,_ Max, warm Anne's bed. Obviously. _Y_ _ou,_ Mary, warm her...hammock. Just as obviously.” He turns to Anne. “And you and _I_ are, well. You and I.” When that fondness ghosts through her eyes, he knows it's not her softening, but the diamonds inlaid in her sharp edges catching the light, and that rather proves his point, doesn't it? But back to the matter at hand, he must still deal with Mary and Max. “ _You_ two don't often interact without Anne, but seem to get along just _swimmingly.”_ At that, the pair of them make eyes at each other, and there's _that_ question answered.

“And _sometimes,_ ” he continues, “I get the distinct impression that all _three_ of you – ” Unable to find words both correct and respectful, Jack waggles his fingers about in what he hopes is a vague approximation of the act in question. “Then there was that _one_ time when we _all –_ ” The same waggling, now aggrandized. “But I was only really with – and the rest of you were – except even _then_ there was a sort of – oh, _do you see what I mean?_ ” he cries, turning the heads of several nearby patrons.

Eyes pleading, he turns to Anne, but only finds her squinting at him as though he's sprouted tits. “The fuck you getting so worked up about this for?” she asks, shaking her head. “Just let it be what it is.”

It's not that _simple_ though – except. Perhaps it could be, if he stopped prodding at it for long enough for it to tell him what he already knows, but has somehow forgotten to remember: they're happy. “You're right. Of course you're right,” he says, and means it. Deflating slightly, he finds he has no desire to finish his rum. “I suppose I've made quite the fool of myself, haven't I?”

Mary and Max tactfully turn their attention to their drinks, but Anne shrugs as if to say _well, what do you expect me to do about it?,_ and it is ironic in the utmost that a woman who sees the world as so simple to carve up should be the cause of Jack's unforeseen and generally discombobulating foray into these gray and murky waters. But what else could he expect from her? Anne, that wild tangle of thistles, he'll kill the man who calls her a rose – well, man or woman, he supposes, he'll kill the man or _woman_ who – not that she wouldn't do it first – not that she really gives a thorny fuck what _flower_ people compare her to, she doesn't much care for flowers at all, his Anne, no matter how unpleasant they are to step on – 

The metaphor may be getting away from him a bit. He loves her, is the point.

And he's grown to love the two orbiters they've picked up. Against the odds, he and Max have landed on the same side of things in regards to the fate of Nassau (and, more importantly, Anne,) and he has to admire any woman who waltzes onto his ship wearing trousers and a rough voice that _must_ grate to maintain, and waltzes off of it with Biblical knowledge of a woman who, with one esteemed exception, has never shown much interest in either of those things. Mary's part of the family now – no, good God, scratch that, there's entirely too much fucking going on to properly call this a _family_ – although, spouses count as family, and _they_ certainly – does that make _them_ –

He's tired. And it must show, because Anne screws up her brow and looks him up and down with scorn he instinctively recognizes as concern, which is, in turn, naught but shorthand for love. “What's the matter, then?”

What _is_ the matter? It's definitely something, something important he's neglecting to address. He glances 'round to regain his bearings, and –

“Ah,” he says, sheepish. “You see, it happens that I attempted to tell a certain young man at the bar who I purchased this round for, and when I couldn't produce any fitting terms of address, I may have subsequently threatened said young man with all manner of unpleasantries should he move from that spot without hearing what I discovered following this brief consultation.”

Moving as one, the four of them turn towards the bar and see a slight boy with a speckled face staring and staring at them, knees quivering. Jack throws him a wave, which, hand shaking like a frond in a gale, the boy returns.

Primly closing her briefly agape mouth, Max slides off of Anne's lap. “I will go assure the poor boy that the infamous Captain Rackham will do him no harm.” She squeezes Anne's shoulder, fingers overlapping with Mary's and lingering. “And perhaps one of you should take our dear captain up to bed.”

Mary smirks. “You go. I'll look after his drink.” With that, she leans across the table, plucks his glass right from his hands and drains half its contents. Before he can protest, he's pulled upwards by the back of his collar and – hello, Anne – finds a firm arm around his waist, guiding him up the creaking stairs to their room. Anne smells like leather and Mary's gunpowder and Max's perfume, and Jack loves being close enough to her to know that.

“You know, I _really_ don't mind...all this,” he says, toeing out of his boots on the bed that blissfully swallows him up. “I'm glad you chose them.”

“You think I don't know that?” Anne asks, and no, of course he didn't. It's just nice to say it sometimes. It turns out he may have said that aloud, because Anne rolls her eyes and _smiles_ at him, just a little. “Get the fuck to sleep.” She throws a blanket over his legs and bends down and kisses his cheek, and Jack doesn't think about it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Jack's journey of self discovery mirrors my own path to accepting that before this show, I would only ever reluctantly go for an OT3, and now I have written what is, at the time of writing, as far as I can tell, the only work on AO3 for this OT4. We'll call it character development.
> 
> This idea only developed from a half-baked passing thought to an actual story after an especially inspiring conversation with my pal/enabler/esteemed partner in queer pirate crime, the lovely and talented [blanketed_in_stars](http://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars), whom I adore and worship. I feel compelled to mention that she's written [a truly excellent little Flint/Silver fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9822401) that y'all should definitely read if you're into that sort of thing.
> 
> Comments are love!


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